THE Evening Telegraph is backing our boys in Iraq by keeping them in touch with events at home.

Soldiers from Coventry and Warwickshire asked for an essential ration to lift their spirits - their favourite local paper.

We are sending off special deliveries to the war-torn country so the lads from the Queen's Royal Hussars, the British Army's light cavalry regiment, can keep abreast of all the news and sport from their home turf.

And we are calling on readers to be pen pals to the soldiers and backing an initiative to form a support group in Coventry for friends and relatives of those serving in the regiment.

The soldiers are helping to keep the peace in the troubled region during a six-month tour.

Jim Richards, a former Hussar from Binley, Coventry, said it would be a fantastic lift for the soldiers to be able to read their local paper out there.

Mr Richards said: "There are a considerable number of local lads out there now.

"Four squadrons have gone out, one in heavy Chieftain tanks and three in Land Roverbased reconnaissance vehicles.

"The regiment is out there on peace-keeping duties, like all of the other regiments out there."

Mr Richards served in the regiment for 15 years.

On leaving the army he set about organising ex-soldiers into social groups and is now chairman of the Queen's Royal Hussars Coventry Troop, which celebrated its 25th anniversary recently.

The Hussars are currently based in Basra, while their wives and children await news from them at the Athlone Barracks, in Sennalager, Germany.

Mr Richards said: "It's not the first time the regiment has been out there. They were involved in the first Gulf War and they've been out to Iraq since then."

In fact, the regiment has been involved in all of Britain's major campaigns since 1685.

And signing up for the Queen's Royal Hussars seems to be something of a family tradition in the Richards family. Jim's son, Joe, also served with the regiment for six years.

He said: "It's not unusual. Soldiers tend to have soldier sons."

The regiment, formed in 1993 following an amalgamation of the Queen's Own Hussars and The Queen's Royal Irish Hussars, recruits from Coventry and Warwickshire and the rest of the West Midlands as well as Worcestershire, Surrey and Sussex and Northern Ireland.

Girls urged to get writing to help keep up morale

If you are keen on becoming a pen pal and can write entertaining, regular letters, the army needs you!

Many members of the regiment have been recruited from Coventry and Warwickshire and have family and roots firmly in the area.

And to help keep up their morale and to stop those feelings of homesickness, they want regular letters from girls back home.

They will then be passed on to members of the Coventry Troop of the Queen's Royal Hussars Old Comrades Association who will send them to the troops in Iraq along with copies of the Evening Telegraph and other goodies from back home.

Brigadier Michael Pritchard CBE (retired), president of the Coventry Troop of the Regimental Association, said: "Our Old Comrades in the area are keen to support the serving soldiers during their tour in as many ways as possible.